Lucy

One of the highlights of the Water 1st trip to Ethiopia is visiting the National Museum of Ethiopia.  At this museum, visitors can see a replica of Lucy, a 3.2 million-year-old fossil found in Ethiopia that proves our ancestors were walking 2.5 million years earlier than previously thought.

Few visitors to Ethiopia are allowed to see the actual fossil.  Happily, Lucy is touring American museums and is featured in a fantastic exhibit at Seattle's Pacific Science Center through March 2009.  We went to see the exhibit last night.

The exhibit begins with an explanation of Ethiopian history and culture.  Many people of my generation (myself included) associate Ethiopia with famine and "Do They Know It's Christmas."  The exhibit reminded me that Ethiopia is famous for so much more.

According to legend, Ethiopia was the home of the Queen of Sheeba ,who visited King Solomon for diplomacy and, some say, romance; possibly one of the lost tribes of Israel ; and the Ark of the Covenant.  The final Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, aka Ras Tefari, inspired the Rastafari movement.

The second part explains Lucy's role in evolution: she provided conclusive evidence that bipedalism came before big brains.  And how scientists can deduce bipedalism and other characteristics from a very partial skeleton.

Lucy, by the way, got her informal name from the fact that the scientists who discovered her listened to the Beatles' song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamond" over and over again on the night of the discovery.